NCJ Number
211784
Date Published
2005
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This chapter affirms the importance of basing criminal justice policy and practice in humanistic values, and it suggests that the emerging concepts of community justice hold the most promise for achieving this objective.
Abstract
"Humanism" is a belief system predicated on the absolute moral worth of all human beings and the imperative of creating conditions and providing services for one another that reduce human suffering and facilitate positive attitudes and behaviors. Currently, politicians rarely appeal to humanistic values as the basis for justifying new criminal justice legislation to the public. Contemporary British Home Office strategy has focused on the protection of the public, the reduction of crime, and the enhancement of community safety, with a less frequent reference to "rehabilitation." This chapter reviews concepts that have emerged under the rubric of "community justice," which is a strategy that blends the separate spheres of "alternatives to prison" and "crime prevention" into a single strategy. A British case example of community justice is the North Liverpool Community Justice Centre, which began operating in December 2004. It consists of a court attended by an array of support workers who address the types of crimes that most concern local residents. Priorities, policies, strategies, and practice in responding to crime receive significant input from the community. This holds out hope for a frank and constructive interaction between professionals and community residents about how to respond to crime, offenders, and victims. Hopefully, this interaction will call forth humanistic values that will reinvent the criminal justice enterprise. This chapter assesses the prospects for a merging of humanistic values and community justice. 33 references